If you’re one of those people who finds it difficult to commit time to strenuous activities like online dating, the TinderBot could be the match for you.
The new robotic swiper mechanism with attached camera is designed to analyse potential matches on dating websites like Tinder (obviously).
It’s the brainchild of software designer/engineer Saurabh Datta, and should free us up for more important matters, like binge-watching shows on Netflix.
However, rather than a commercial product (although we reckon this could be marketed pretty easily), the invention is actually part of an experiment to see what automating human choice might look like when it comes to online dating.
And given that most people already have a system when swiping on the mobile dating app, the new bot is really just the logical extension of that, as well as another sign the machines will eventually end up doing practically all jobs for humans.
Unfortunately, the robotic matchmaker isn’t a perfect replacement for good old human error, as it only picks matches based on your initial inputs (age, ethnicity, smiling faces, not being in a gym in profile photo, etc) and doesn’t actually learn what your taste in potential partners is.
Still, the bot is probably a decent indicator of how online dating will evolve over the coming years when we ultimately become too lazy to even swipe right, and the robots rise up and take over.
